Beautful British Weather – who’d have guessed it would be like this?

The beautiful hot weather continues over much of Britain and the met office predicts more hot days for us and perhaps a few exciting thunderstorms. There is a lot of plant watering and the lawns, despite Daf’s attention, are looking rather parched – they will recover and meanwhile, we are basking in this glorious summer.

As I write, the delicate moon, two days from being full, is rising slowly above Carnedd Dafydd, in a still blue sky: it is 8:49 in the evening and the long days tempt us to stay out of doors as much as possible. We haven’t eaten a single meal indoors for weeks now and our guests have made full use of the cottage orchard, spending hours basking in the hot sun and occasionally tearing themselves away from this ‘lotus-eater’ existence. Their view from the top of Snowdon was spectacular in its clarity.

Looking down on Llyn Idwal

 
Looking down on Llyn Idwal in the Ogwen valley
 

The birds mainly fall quiet by midday, apart from the swallows who are building their strength for the next long flight and the odd raucous gull passing overhead. There is an air of somnolence which comes over our land – if this weather continues, could we take to siestas like our continental neighbours?

I hope this dream weather will stay with us a little longer so we can find out.

Dorothy
22nd July 2013.

Graham Mills Landscape Artist

Watercolour by Graham Mills  'Bangor Pier'

Artist Graham Mills and his wife Rosie, from Milton Keynes, stayed at Coed y Berclas during the second week of the Easter holidays. They had beautiful weather for the whole week, which gave Graham the opportunity to produce a series of watercolour paintings of the view from the Cottage Orchard, looking over the Menai Straits and Bangor Pier towards the mountains of Snowdonia. We thought you might like to see some of the resulting images. We chose two of our favourites. Graham says next time he stays here he’s going to bring acrylic paints and really let rip. We look forward to putting photos of some of those paintings on the blog too.

This is what Graham and Rosy wrote in the Visitors’ Book:-

‘We had the most fantastic time, we pre-ordered the weather so that we could sit and enjoy the amazing views. We were able to sit out every morning and night (6 days of sun). Everything about the stay was great, fantastic warm genuine welcome, the website which is excellent does not convey the reality, it would be impossible to.

We both enjoyed painting the views from the terrace, I ran out of paper, will not make that mistake next time. There is much to do and explore on the Island, we enjoyed the artists open studios, if these are not open then look around the cottage at Dorothy’s work. We will be back with more paint and brushes, enjoy your stay, tell all your friends but not for the week that I would like it next year.

Just relax and float into the landscape.’

watercol02

Dorothy